Snail ate your mail? Why gastropods munch paper – and how to stop them

In wet weather, garden snails can seek shelter in letterboxes – and find a feast there waiting for them We’ve all heard of snail mail – a term popularised since the advent of electronic mail – but who knew that snails eat mail?

It might sound far-fetched but it’s true. We have it on good authority from the ecologist Simon Mustoe, who said snails ate his letter from Sir David Attenborough , a BBC report announcing the closure of a Northumberland Royal Mail postbox because of snails…